Local authorities are concerned that an unregulated psychoactive drug is readily available for sale over the Internet and from at least one location in Franklin County. Sea the Source, a store in the Chambersburg Mall that also sells bongs, glass pipes and other items associated with cannabis culture, has been offering synthetic marijuana for more than a month, Chambersburg Police Chief David Arnold said.

"It's definitely out there and it's definitely something we need to be concerned about. Parents need to know about it," he said.

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Medical-marijuana Backers Call N.J.'s Draft Regulations Too Strict. The State Says It Just Wants To Be Careful.

The wait for access to medical marijuana has been excruciating for Jennifer Lande.

Long-untreated Lyme disease paired with genetic complications cause Lande chronic pain. Her muscles are wasting, and her digestive system doesn't work properly.

On good days, the 28-year-old Medford woman, who once enjoyed camping and hiking, walks with a cane. On bad days, she's bedridden. Marijuana, she said, could ease the suffering and slow her weight loss.

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A York County Halfway House Is Named In A Civil Rights Complaint.

A Harrisburg man has filed a federal civil suit against a York County halfway house and its female staff because he claims he was forced to comply with urine drug testing in front of them.

The suit, filed in U.S. Middle District Court by attorney Don Bailey, contends the defendants' actions "humiliated and embarrassed" Jason L. Zullinger and violated his constitutional rights against illegal searches and cruel and unusual punishment.

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Just came back from visiting family in the Bay Area, and boy, the smell of politics was all over the place.

I'm not talking about the circus that is the Meg Whitman-Jerry Brown gubernatorial race, or the Carly Fiorina-Barbara Boxer Senate cat fight, although both campaigns have stunk up the place with enough hot air to fail a basic emissions test.

No, the pungent smell to which I refer is that of weed. Or, if you prefer, pot. Reefer. Chronic. Whatever you call it, marijuana is on the brink of becoming a new political reality in California.

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Investigators who set up a sting operation Monday had hoped to snare two corrupt Philadelphia police officers suspected of robbing drug dealers - just not the two who fell into the trap.

The 25th District officers arrested Monday, Sean Alivera and his partner, Christopher Luciano, were not the initial targets of the investigation and were not previously suspected of wrongdoing, sources familiar with the case said.

A confidential informant had identified two other officers as associates of a local drug dealer and had helped set up a sting to catch them robbing a courier of cash and marijuana. The courier was actually an undercover officer.

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Re: "Still fighting the War on Drugs," Sunday:

Edwin Meese III and Charles Stimson need a reality check. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. Unlike alcohol, marijuana does not cause violent behavior. Unlike cigarettes, marijuana does not cause cancer.

Even the government's Institute of Medicine found that "compared to most other drugs ... dependence among marijuana users is relatively rare."

We should not criminalize responsible adults for using something less harmful than alcohol. Rather, society should regulate who can sell, purchase, and use marijuana - the same way we do for alcohol and tobacco.

The alternative is keeping marijuana confined to an illegal market in which drug dealers offer no quality control, commit acts of violence to defend their turf, and have no qualms about selling to children.

Mike Meno

Director of communications

Marijuana Policy Project

Washington

[end]

Advocates of legalizing marijuana have been blowing a lot of smoke in the debate over California's Proposition 19.

For starters, there's the fiction that marijuana is no different from alcohol. Indeed, the difference in health effects is striking.

The benefits of moderate alcohol consumption - reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, gallstones, diabetes, and death from a heart attack - - are well-documented. There's even evidence that alcohol helps keep the mind sharp as one ages.

No one has ever associated pot consumption with mental acuity. Quite the opposite: Marijuana use has been shown to impair memory and inhibit learning ability. Among students, marijuana use is strongly associated with lower test scores and lower educational attainment. Chemically, marijuana is more like "harder" drugs - cocaine, heroin, speed, and the psychedelics - than a glass of wine or a cocktail. One study found that extended use may even lead to psychosis.

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State and federal governments face a daunting fiscal outlook. The national debt stands at 60 percent of GDP, its highest level since World War II. Under current projections this ratio will rise to more than 75 percent of GDP by 2020 and continue increasing thereafter. States are also facing severe budget shortfalls.

Politicians and the public express concern about the debt, but standard proposals for expenditure cuts or tax increases garner little support. Understandably, therefore, some politicians, commentators, interest groups, and citizens have embraced unconventional approaches to closing fiscal gaps, such as legalizing drugs.

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Having spent 33 years as a police officer making my share of drug busts and sending countless "messages" to dealers and users alike, I agree with Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams that "going after the kid who's smoking a joint" will not solve our drug problems. Williams recently decided to downgrade minor marijuana-possession penalties from jail time to community service.

Sadly, though, "going after" the larger sellers and producers will not solve our drug problem, either. At least not until we get smart about how we go after them.

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A psychologist says bipolar disorder accounts for the medical marijuana activist's zeal for weed.

Medical marijuana activist and otherwise law-abiding Glenville resident Charles Andrew Homan got busted last year with more than 65 marijuana plants.

Wednesday, he goes before Judge John S. Kennedy in a bench trial for possession with the intent to deliver marijuana.

He will be bringing a mental infirmity defense.

Homan, 59, is a longtime sufferer of a bipolar disorder. More than 30 years of various medications and treatment to control the disorder were "without any lasting benefits," according to a defense filing in York County Common Pleas Court.

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Regarding Lou Aliota's Aug. 20 op-ed, ("To reduce poverty, stop drug abuse," Erie Times-News), the drug war is a cure worse than the disease. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime; it fuels crime.

With alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind from drinking unregulated bathtub gin. While U.S. politicians ignore the drug war's historical precedent, European countries are embracing harm reduction, a public health alternative based on the principle that both drug abuse and prohibition have the potential to cause harm.

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A woman at the center of an Asian drug-trafficking ring that smuggled millions of ecstasy pills to Philadelphia and other U.S. cities was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison.

Phuong Thi Tran, 39, could have faced more than 17 years under federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors filed a motion for "downward departure."

That motion typically signals that a defendant has cooperated with prosecutors. In Tran's case, the attorneys discussed the details of the motion with the judge privately.

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For the past six months, I have attended the public forums and workshops on poverty and early childhood education in Erie and America.

It is agreed that many factors cause poverty, but I will focus on issues with which I have professional experience and knowledge.

I am a registered pharmacist, and during my 35-plus years as Director of Pharmacy Services, both in government and the private industry, I have taught thousands of individuals about drug, alcohol and health issues.

To increase and support early educational endeavors for our children, we must first address the abuse of drugs, both legal and illegal, and alcohol.

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Before Andrew Greene could qualify for a free training program to learn basic manufacturing skills at Westmoreland County Community College, he and a dozen other students had to undergo a drug test and criminal background check.

Greene said he wasn't surprised and felt it was a good way of showing prospective employers he is ready for work when he completes the five-week program at the Youngwood school.

"That's kind of the point of this program," said Greene, 27, of Greensburg.

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EAST PIKELAND - A Phoenixville man was arrested on drug charges Monday after he allegedly dropped two bags of heroin inside Citadel Federal Credit Union.

[name redacted], 25, of the first block of East Walnut Street, is charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and disorderly conduct.

According to court documents, officer Ken Smith responded to the Citadel Federal Credit Union, 558 Kimberton Road, for a report of possible drugs found in the bank around 1:52 p.m. Aug. 16. Smith said upon arrival, he spoke with bank management, who advised him that one of the bank tellers found two bags of a white powder in a blue wrapper lying on the floor of the bank in front of the bank counter.

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Like many debates about making marijuana legal for medical use, the one at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health on Thursday turned into a discussion of the dangers of drugs.

That didn't sit well with state Rep. John Myers, D-Philadelphia, who had come to the Oakland campus at the invitation of state Rep. Jake Wheatley, D-Hill District, to conduct a public hearing on the matter.

More than 80 people, many of them college students wearing T-shirts calling for the legalization of marijuana, attended the session before the two lawmakers, members of the House Health and Human Services Committee considering House Bill 1393, which would allow medical marijuana use in the state.

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AMBRIDGE - Some parents in Ambridge Area School District will probably have a little lighter back-to-school burden since school board directors agreed Wednesday to eliminate a $30 drug-and-alcohol testing fee for athletes and others at the high school.

The decision to eliminate the drug testing fee must be formally approved at an Aug. 18 board meeting, but Superintendent Erv Weischedel asked for a straw vote at Wednesday's workshop meeting and no directors offered resistance.

"(Eliminating the fee) is the route I'd like to see us go," director Kevin Joy, who initiated the discussion in June, said.

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In response to the Aug. 5 column, "Legalizing marijuana would help California's deficit," the drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2008, there were 847,863 marijuana arrests in the U.S., almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources prosecuting Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use.

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Local Businesses Have Differing Opinions On Drug Testing Workers

Drugs continue to be a problem in the Altoona area, but the question remains whether those drug problems are having an impact on local companies filling job openings.

"When potential employees find out you require a drug test, they lose candidates. When they find out you require a drug test, they disappear," said Joe Hurd, president and CEO of the Blair County Chamber of Commerce.

He added that the chamber encourages companies to drug test potential employees.

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We live in a representative democracy. We entrust our elected officials to make legislative decisions on our behalf that hopefully represents our views and best interests.

However, there are certainly some hot-button issues that I would like to have a direct vote on, which is why I find ballot initiatives so awesome. Almost half of the states in this country -- including Pennsylvania -- support their own form of direct democracy in the form of ballot initiatives, but no state does this more famously than California.

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